Stop Punishing Our Kids: How Title VII Can Protect Children of Color in Public School’s Discipline Practices

Authors

Lizette Rodriguez

First Page

19

Last Page

51

Abstract

Section I of this comment considers the evolution of education in the United States and how American society dealt with racial discrimination in public schools in the past, and how those facts and decisions differ from the issues that students of color are facing today. Section II explains the Equal Protection Clause (EPC) and analyzes the seminal cases that demonstrate the power of the EPC and when it is appropriate to use it. Section III introduces Title VII and walks through violations of disparate impact discrimination and disparate treatment discrimination. Section IV explains what the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is and what the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GOA) found after analyzing the 2013 and 2014 data on public school discipline across the country. Section V analyzes the GOA study facts with the legal standards of the EPC and Title VII to consider if Black students had a legal remedy under the current laws. Section VI uses Title VII as a template for new legislation that can better protect students against the current trends of public-school discipline. Section VII considers what current state of the country in regard to education and racial tensions more broadly and how Congress must react shift the current trends.

Recommended Citation

Lizette Rodriguez, Stop Punishing Our Kids: How Title VII Can Protect Children of Color in Public School’s Discipline Practices, 39 J. Nat’l Ass’n Admin. L. Judiciary 19 (2020)
Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/naalj/vol39/iss2/2